Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
assalam alaikum
I became pregnant a few months after Ramadan and remained pregnant through the next Ramadan; I did not fast when I was pregnant because my doctor believed that it was detrimental for the fetus, especially because of the medicine that I was taking which required me to have a consistent intake of water.
However, I never got the chance to make up the fasts which I missed from the previous Ramadan due to menstruation.
Now, inshAllah we are about to enter the month of Ramadan again and I have not made up any of these fasts. Is it obligatory for me to make up these fasts (38 total) before the next Ramadan in order for the fasts from the next Ramadan to count, or can I make them up after this Ramadan?
Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,
I pray this finds you in the best of health and spirits.
In the Hanafi school, it is not obligatory to make up missed or unperformed fasts before the coming of the next Ramadan. Rather, the obligation is that one take the reasonable means to make up such fasts, even after the next Ramadan. One should be careful because if one dies without having taking reasonable means to make up the fasts–such that one’s delay was unexcusable–then one would be considered sinful. [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]
And Allah alone gives success.
Faraz Rabbani